Living the Live in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta

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Idea

Somehow we are always trying to establish a continuum in our Life. The things we like we invite to stay with us forever and at the same time we immediately want to get rid of the shadow parts. We always look for the unchangeable in the changeable. But now what when we are seriously looking for an answer on: Who am I? Of course, even in our meditations we act the same as we always do: we position our-self as the unchangeable, watching the changeable. This way we still act like we are used to.

Look at a baby that is helplessly waiting for care. Without any assistance the newborn will die pretty soon. From our first moments in this world we need care, on all levels of existence. For a grown up it is rather simple. You are hungry and you find a way to buy some food and you will eat it soon after. Now look at the difference between you as a baby and as a grown up.

During the years you have learned to talk, to walk, to plan, to work, to cook, even to digest properly. You have learned countless methods to build yourself a working physical state with on top of the cake a partner to love, a comfortable home, proper education, a job , money, healthcare, a pension-plan. You easily can fill up this list with many other desires. Picture yourself as the little baby and now. Over the years you have build up a full body-worldsystem of identification, all set up in a perfect functioning dream of space and time.

For a baby there is no world. Even objects appear to be blurry colour-patterns. It is not made to survive on itself. But from day one the body will learn itself to survive. Identifications will grow, building up safety, each at a time. Noticeably the Idea of a separate existing body in a world of objects will appear to be. And this is how it should function otherwise the body, THE IDEA, would die. The body is there and has learned to live and survive. It is perfectly fit for it.

For a body the natural knowledge and learning-curve how to survive has to be born out of something deeper. And that is the Idea of separation, and therefore the urge to protect itself. How come? Well, in essence the birth of the body is THE EXPRESSION of separation itself already. This whole physical state IS build on fear of death and is urging itself to overcome death, because IT undoubtedly KNOWS there is just LIFE, as in CONSCIOUSNESS itself! Why would your heart beat, why would your longs function, why are your organs and blood doing its job. Yes, they all work together to survive death!

The physical world is build upon THE IDEA of mortality. Everything has been created to live a long and happy life with the avoidance of pain and sorrow leading to sickness and death. Deep down we know all this. Birth and death are part of the same IDEA. We even create the idea of an eternal soul, a heaven or a someone who can reach enlightenment, or we like to live the buddha as the unchangeable watcher on the hill. Even then, we want to survive.

And it is all so very natural….

When you sit on your couch and you start to meditate like the best you can there is one thing left to understand. You are THIS, the IDEA that created the unchangeable in the changeable. This has to be seen, This has to be understood. Probably now you think. ah.. I know what he means: I am both, I am all there is, I am beyond the world of objects and therefore beyond the changeable in the unchangeable. This is the tricky mind, because now you have to take the next step. A step into the abyss. And like a teenage girl who wants to experience her first love, you first will know when you have taken the invitation to jump into the ocean.

Is it so natural to wake up in the morning, finding your clothes on the chair where you left them? You find yourself in the same bed, the same spot in the same room. The same body, the same you. Nothing has changed. The night has gone and the day-light is inviting you to become active. That is what we know, repeating the same experience over and over. Creating an existence of reality. But is it so natural? I got a question from someone.

Q: Every morning I find myself being the same me, the same body on the same spot as where I went asleep for the night. Lately I think: how self-evident is this actually?

A: You wake up, aware of the same body, the same you, because You want it to be like that. What do you remember of your first weeks, months, being ‘ in’ this ‘ same ‘ body?

Happy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Q: Nothing. Looking at some childhood-pictures bring back some memories of the moments the pictures were taken. Then I’m about 2 years of age.

A: What do you think made your body to wake up in the morning. In the same bed, the same spot as where you left it?

Q: My guess is, that it had its sleep. The body has its own rhythm.

A: Good. Your body has its own rhythm. And although you can’t remember anything about the first few months of your life, your body was already there according your relatives that can testify that.

So you already were around it seems. Point is: You can’t remember! So who is the one that remembers and knows it is around now?

Q: That is a part of me, my consciousness, or consciousness itself that let me realise I am here, alive. I am aware of me!

A: You are consciousness itself. True. It has always been and will always be. So even in the first months of your bodily existence it was already there. So what made you ‘ forget’ this first stages of your Life?

Q: My brain wasn’t so well-developed, maybe?

A: NO! You were not yet identified. Better, you were not aware being around! There was no Idea of being a you. There was no Idea of a you in a body amongst all other bodies in a daily repeating world!

Q: Why wasn’t I aware of this?

A: Simply because you were not afraid to die. There was no one to die! Slowly but certain you, the watcher, awareness, got involved in the Idea of a separate you. You start to be aware of others! Of a world around. You create your bodily identification. Realise that before all this, you had no body! Now you realise your body, and by then in separation, it got its own rhythm, and started to save itself from the first moment on. The heart, the lungs, everything was working to reach the next moment in time. It was programmed to survive. We just live with the Idea not to die. That is your Identification. You as a separated body trying to live forever.

Happy baby Emeth (Photo credit: Tim & Selena Middleton)

Q: So the Idea of time and body, related to each other, is just there because I let it happen? Again and again?

A: It is this Idea of a separated individual that needs to survive death, that lets you live the bodily experience in the first place. Give up this separation, realise you are always around, body or nobody. I guarantee that you will start to realise your true nature stronger and stronger. And this without the fear of death.

This is the second part of a series about Time and Self-realisation. The first part I published sunday the 11th of november. It is the core of my, no our business, and not easy to grab. Take your time. In the upcoming weeks I will write more on the subject. Please feel free to ask me questions. Don’t hesitate. I welcome them. This subject is THE most important subject of your life. I can tell you, and there aren’t much possibilities nowadays to get deeper into this. When you want to talk/write to me privately, let me know. I will get into contact with you in return. Welcome!

Q: So when I live a thousand Life’s, they all start and end at the same time?

The Passage of Time (Photo credit: ToniVC)

A: Hmm, yes, but then it sounds like a time/space movement. In the future you die and you get reborn. That is not where I want to go to. There is no you to die, not a person. Everything happens always in the same moment so to speak.

At the moment of Death the crack that created you will still keep its place. It repeats itself over and over: a hundred times, a thousand, a million, more? A never-ending wheel.

Q: That sounds horrible

A: This is because you live according a time/space-concept. A horizontal line from birth to death in time. And this over and over. Actually this is not the case at all. So be happy, no millions of years for you, he. All your so-called life’s you live at the same time: it’s just the same record played in a new setting, not another time!

Do you understand this!!

Q: This is not easy to get. How does this happen: all at the same time?

A: This whole body/mind experience is created by living THE IDEA, and THE IDEA alone. Idea is thought and creates the space/time illusion that is the Godfather of this manifestation!

Q: Ah so we are trapped in this Idea of time!

A: Exactly! Well, not trapped forever. Talking about time: during your Lifetime there are moments you get the change to jump over the crack in the record. When you really go for self-realisation you will encounter the mess you have created in your life. You will have to give up a lot. And that is not easy. It hurts. In the end it will give itself up. Believe-systems fade away, and therefore often your job, partner, security-system. It all seems to be not working anymore. You will start to be alone, but not lonely. Than you know that you have reached the crack on the record. Instead of dying, Life will give you the invitation to give up on it. Then you jump. Possibly you even will give up your body, but you will take the risk, wich is no longer a real risk at that moment. It is like believing in Santa, but when you have given up on that Idea, he won’t scare you anymore. The same goes for the manifestation of the body and all that is shown into YOU.

Q: Is this why I often feel as if I am living another life? In another era?

ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

A: When I say yes you will make it a part of your Idea’s. But yes, in a way this is true. You are repeating the same moment over and over, starting at the same point.

You think you keep the knowledge of the moment before and mix it into the moment. Although you can’t remember a thing after being born or waking up after a dreamless state, the Idea that let you being born gives you the illusion of building up knowledge or karma in the first place. Luckily at the same time this concept can be realised as Idea every second of your life. Realising this will let you live for the first time in a thousand life’s so to speak. Till that very moment you are unwillingly repeating the same moment, over and over again. Hehe..

It is hard to get, and I will let you know more about it in the next period.

That what you call ‘ Now” has nothing to do with a ‘ moment on hold ‘ . The real YOU is that what lets the ‘Now’ appear. It makes Now available. It makes Idea available, and therefore Time and Space as part of the Body/Mind structure. When you realise this, you will immediately know you placed the crack there yourself in the first place.